If you’d like an object lesson in how not to conduct corporate public relations, consider how Sobeys, the iconic, Nova Scotia-rooted company that operates the second largest supermarket chain in the country, bungled a racial profiling case. The story began back in May 2009 when an assistant manager at the Sobeys Hammonds Plains outlet confronted […]
- 08/30/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Where to begin? With the too-soon deaths of three young black men murdered in separate incidents within a week last month? Or with last Monday’s announcement the provincial government is restructuring — which is to say eliminating — a community-based program in North and East Preston, Cherry Brook and Lake Loon that had been helping […]
- 05/03/2016
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Chronicle Herald publisher Sarah Dennis was contrite. Under the headline, “We Have Listened And Will Learn From This,” she wrote about her newspaper’s mis-handling of the infamously viral story that “should not have been released.” She seemed forthright: “apologize,” “failure of foresight,” “acknowledge our mistakes,” “accept and try to learn from criticism…” But nowhere in […]
- 04/19/2016
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
There are still many unanswered questions about what Shandell McNamara calls “the most humiliating experience of my life.” McNamara, a 27-year-old mixed-race woman, went to the Fenwick Street Shoppers Drug Mart last Monday night to pick up a package. Instead, she was confronted by the associate-owner, who claimed the store had video footage showing her […]
- 11/23/2015
- StephenKimber
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It’s difficult to see Education Minister Karen Casey’s decision to cut off funding for the Council on African Canadian Education (CACE) as anything but vindictive. Let’s examine the history. In 1996, after high school race riots and a critical government advisory report recommended establishing an Africentric Learning Institute to improve black students’ education, the province […]
- 03/02/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Let me begin with this. I don’t believe Lyle Howe was convicted of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman because he was black, or that “those that represent the white power structure” conspired to put down an uppity black lawyer. David Sparks does. Sparks is spokesperson for a group planning a rally outside the law courts […]
- 06/23/2014
- sk15admin
- 2 Comments
What a difference a few decades make. The world has spent the last week rightly celebrating the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, a man one letter writer to The New York Times summed up as a “universal champion of freedom, humanity and equality, and as an ardent proponent of tolerance, compassion and forbearance.” Last […]
- 12/16/2013
- StephenKimber
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The last time I talked face to face with Rocky Jones was in November 2011, a few nights before he was scheduled to deliver a public lecture on “The Struggle for Human Rights in African Nova Scotian Communities, 1961-2011.” It could have been the too-wordy title for his autobiography. (Metro File Photo) We met at […]
- 08/12/2013
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
It’s complicated. I know who Chris Brown is, of course, in a can’t-avoid-it-if-I-tried, popular culture way. I know he and his girlfriend Rihanna skipped scheduled Grammy appearances in 2009 on the heels of an incident in which Brown “hit, bit and choked” her. I saw, without seeking out, the online photo of her battered face. […]
- 07/22/2013
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
For the lawyers, of course, it is about protecting the client, lessening liability, mitigating damages. In that context, perhaps, it makes lawyer sense to niggle over nouns, to parse phrases like “as if we were slaves” for literality, to offer up a bookkeeper’s balance sheet to contradict allegations of underfunding, to use all the lawyers’ […]
- 06/17/2013
- sk15admin
- 2 Comments
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
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